I’m all for brainstorming — the idea of throwing ideas out, no matter how ridiculous or stupid they may seem — but the NFL needs to put a muffler on before it speaks publicly about it.

In a recent magazine article, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell mentioned the possibility of eliminating kickoffs. No, really. Kickoffs. Gone.

The concept of special teams is very important, some say it’s a crucial one-third of the game. Let’s face it, field position comes from a team’s ability to have a great return, a poor return due to a penalty, or no return at all.

That deals with punting as well, something the league would want to see instead of kickoffs. The thought of giving a team the ball on its own 30-yard line and a so-called “fourth-and-15” with the idea of punting it seems ludicrous.

I’ll give the league credit for moving the kickoff from the 30-yard line to the 35-yard line starting last season. In a recent report, kickoff returns have gone down from 80.1 percent in 2010 to 53.5 last year with concussions dropping 40 percent in that span.

It’s a team’s option to make a return if they field it in the end zone or take the knee. That’s still a small part of the strategy, although there are a lot of fair catches as the numbers show.

The “fourth-and-15” idea reeks of a cheap gimmick but the long-term effect is a lot of players, especially those who got their starts playing on special-teams units, could see a decrease in playing time or rosters being pared down a bit. You still need punt teams, but kickoffs are so much a part of the game.

Rules that develop like this tend to come from start-up leagues like the defunct XFL or an indoor football league.

The NFL should be more concerned with finding ways to make equipment safer, like the helmets with extra padding, for example.

It’s not the first crazy idea the league has floated around. Remember a couple of years ago, there was talking of allowing London — that’s London, England — the chance to host a Super Bowl.

The league has been trying to make inroads of tapping into the international market. They had NFL Europe and have had games played in London — at one time preseason games, now regular-season games — but giving the city the crown jewel of the NFL would have been preposterous.

Can you imagine a major U.S. sports league giving London millions upon millions of dollars — perhaps much more than that — in business while telling a potential U.S. city, “Sorry, you didn’t need that money, did you?”

That would have been business suicide and very well may have ended the NFL as we know it or at the very least alienate its fan base.

The NFL needs to keep ideas to itself and the competition committee before it passes them along. If the NFL is looking for feedback, it’s not going to get any positives from this one. It needs to speak to its owners first before spouting any ideas publicly.

As the maxim says, “It’s better to be silent and be thought a fool, then to speak and remove all doubt.”

The NFL needs to adhere to that.

Sam Tallarico is a staff writer for the Butler Eagle.